Malaysia cancels press conference on missing plane MH370

Malaysia's Defence and Acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein speaks during a press conference at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on Friday, March 14, 2014. Malaysia cancelled a press conference that had been scheduled for 5.30pm on Saturday to provide more information on a Malaysia Airlines plane missing since last Saturday. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysia cancelled a press conference that had been scheduled for 5.30pm on Saturday to provide more information on a Malaysia Airlines plane missing since last Saturday.

Ofiicials at the media secretariat here said the conference, which was expected to have been chaired by Malaysia's Defence and Acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein, was cancelled as there were no further updates to be released.

Questions arising from the earlier statement made by Prime Minister Najib Razak would be answered on Sunday, they said.

Mr Najib had revealed in a press conference in the afternoon that the communications and tracking systems of missing flight MH370 had been deliberately switched off and the plane was turned around and flown for nearly seven hours after it vanished.

Shortly after the Mr Najib finished speaking, police arrived at the home of the missing aircraft's pilot to search for evidence.

As the unprecedented search for Kuala Lumpur-Beijing Flight MH370 and its 239 passengers and crew entered its second week, Mr Najib said that search operations in South China Sea were being called off.

He also said new data showed the last communication between the missing plane and satellites took place at 8:11am Malaysian time. An analysis of the plane's last communication with satellites placed it in one of two corridors, he said. One was a northern corridor stretching from northern Thailand to the border of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. And the other a southern corridor stretching from Indonesia to the southern Indian Ocean.